For fans of The Passenger, this thrilling tale of an ex-Nazi surgeon hiding in plain sight in 1960s London by the celebrated filmmaker is a lost noir gem, introduced by Anthony Quinn and narrated on audio by Mark Gatiss, as chosen by Ian Rankin on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read.
Imre Jozsef Pressburger was born into a middle-class Jewish family
in Miskolc, Hungary, in 1902. He studied in Prague and Stuttgart
before the sudden death of his father forced him to get a job to
support himself and his mother. He moved to Weimar-era Berlin in
1926, where he worked as a journalist then as a scriptwriter at the
prestigious UFA. With the rise of the Nazi Party in 1933,
Pressburger lost his job in the purge of Jewish employees and fled
to Paris. His mother - and many relatives - died in Auschwitz; he
never forgave himself for not being able to take her when he fled.
In 1935 he relocated to London with its booming film industry and
met Michael Powell. From 1942 they shared credit for writing,
producing and directing 14 films released by their joint production
company, The Archers, including The Life and Death of Colonel
Blimp, A Matter of Life and Death, Black Narcissus and The Red
Shoes. Pressburger was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 1981 and the BFI
in 1983, and also wrote two novels: Killing a Mouse on Sunday
(1961) and The Glass Pearls (1966). Originally on a stateless
passport, he changed his name to Emeric in 1938 and became a
British citizen in 1946. He married twice and had a daughter, and
died in Suffolk in 1988.
Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. From 1998 to 2013 he
was the film critic for the Independent. He is the author of six
prize-winning novels including Curtain Call, Freya, Eureka, Our
Friends in Berlin, and London, Burning.
"Deserves to be recognized both for its own virtuosity, and as an important addition to the genre of Holocaust literature ... A master class in rendering the banality of evil ... Magnificent." -- Paris Review
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